All Gone
by Horny-bimbo
Summary: A tragedy dedicated to the love of Chloe Chandler and Legolas Greenleaf. WARNING - have a tissue, just in case!


It was the 28th of October.

Today, I was in the hospital, I was a nervous car wreck inside. I never felt this bad in my life, I'm Legolas Greenleaf, an Elf of Middle-Earth who battled Orcs and enemies, and I am scared inside of a hospital, I'm such a fool.

But there is a very important reason why I am here, this young girl had a single request, a request which was just to meet someone who wouldn't pity her but be her friend, smile to help her feel good, to tell her what life can be like and what she has missed out on in her life.

She was stuck in the hospital for a long time, she would be fifteen years old now, the doctors are trying to find something that is affecting her that could possibly lead to her death. When I found out about this online, suggested by Charlie to have a look at, my body took action without hesitation and here I am, standing here with emotions of all the kinds that I know for certain I have never felt before, awaiting the signal to enter this mysterious girl's room. I have no idea what she looks like because there were no pictures of her, protection of identity I guess.

I walked inside the room to meet this lonely being, I walked in to someone with sickly pale skin that was smooth as silk, not a single hair appeared, bronze hair that shone regularly but brighter in an indescribable way that was non-physical, blue eyes that can bring nothing more of the colour out to the surface, pale lips, the only I've seen in my lifetime like that. She wore a very faint smile that somehow immediately enlightened my full inner-being with complete joy.

There she was, stranger to my eyes, if I closed them, the image of her would never be vivid as it was a rare sight to see. There she was, Chloe Chandler, the one who was stuck in this prison room of her's.

I was shocked. She didn't belong in a hospital. She belonged out in the world. She didn't look ill. She looked like someone who would love to walk down the streets, dancing and singing along, not caring what people said as she passed by.

"Hello," she said, her voice weak and fragile, but surprisingly soft, beautiful it was that not even I could possibly remember the honey-like texture after hearing it so many times.

"Hello," I said, sitting next to her in the chair beside his bed. A smile like expression coloured her face. It was as if she didn't get hardly anyone sitting by this chair, including the doctors. "I'm Legolas Greenleaf."

"I know. That's nice." There was a long silence filled with beeping machines and ragged breathing. "What are you doing here?"

"Me?"

"Yes. Why would you spend time in a hospital unless you were sick? Did you need to see a family member or something?"

"Well, no. And your cheery personality is just an added bonus."

"Look Legolas, you seem like a nice person. You should switch partners."

"What? Why?"

"Because you don't want to be my friend. I am probably most likely to be boring. I spend my days dreaming about grass beneath my toes and the sun on my face. I'm helpless. I can't hold a conversation. I have no people skills. I've been here for seven years and it doesn't seem like I'll be getting out any time soon. I don't have any stories to tell." Seven years?

Now that I was closer to her, she didn't look healthy. Her eyes were sunken in; deep circles under them. Her face was too thin. Her skin was paler. Her lips were dry. Her hair was thinning. "What do you have?" I whispered; my throat dry.

She frowned. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to ask. "They do not really know. Neither do I, as I don't pay attention to anything they say anymore. I let the doctors work and I just take the medicines and do the tests they ask me to do."

"And you cannot go home?" I asked. I couldn't imagine being in one place for seven years. That is just… just pure torture. She was by herself. No one else her age would be in a hospital that long. No one older would really be in a hospital for that long.

"No. I haven't left the hospital except for testing at other places since I was nine. And even in those places it was the same plain walls and horrible smelling cleaners. I go there and back in an ambulance. A few years ago, my parents were going to build me a room at home with all of the stuff I needed, but…"

I felt so bad. I complained for hours when Charlie took the car and I had to call a friend to get me places. I couldn't imagine it. "You seem to have the place Chloe-fied a little bit," I said, referring to the posters and knick-knacks she had around the room.

"Well, yes," she said. "My parents brought all this in before the murder." Murder? "But, I do not want to talk about it,"

Chloe and I talked for a while. When I looked out the window, I saw that it was dark. "I've been here for hours!" She too looked out the window, a frown on her face. I shouldn't have brought it up. I could leave... but she couldn't. "I have to go. I have so much work! The headmistress kill me if I miss it."

"So which is it?"

"Huh?"

"Which is it? work or headmistress?"

I groaned and picked up my bag. "Both." I was almost out the door when I turned around. "I shall see you on Wednesday, Chloe. It was nice getting to know you."

"You too."

When I was out of the room, I walked numbly to the bathroom and cried for twenty minutes before I collected myself enough to go home.

Wednesday, I went into the room and Chloe was sitting in the chair. I smiled. She told me on Monday that sometimes the doctors let her walk around her room for a little bit. She still had a billion wires in her arms, but at least she wasn't in bed.

"Hey!" I greeted.

"Hello," she grumbled.

"What's wrong?"

"My foot's asleep."

"Oh… well stomp on it."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Her lips were pursed and her eyes were slits as she turned to look at the wall. She didn't want to talk about it and I didn't want to press it. But come on, who wanted to have their foot asleep.

"I'll rub it," I said, walking over and sitting on the bed, bending over to grab her foot. I rolled up her sweat pants so that I could get a better grip on her foot. Her whole foot, along with part of her leg, was covered in sores.

"I said I didn't want to talk about it. I told you I couldn't stomp on it. Why can't you just leave it alone? You don't have to take care of me, Legolas. In fact, I'd like it if you didn't. I want just one person in my life to just want to be with me, and not because they feel sorry from me or they think that I need tending too. Can you just be my friend?"

I sighed, "Of course."

"Thank you."

Five weeks had passed. As school was closed due to non-pupil days, now I just went in to see Chloe. I ran from the car to the door entering the hospital, covering my head from the rain. "I'll pick you up at six?" Charlie shouted after me.

"Whatever time is fine!" I shouted back. When I was under the awning, I shook my hair out and shivered. The rain was cold. Very cold. I walked into the motion-automated door and waved to some of the nurses I had come to know in my time here. I stepped in front of the receptionist. She always had to give me the visitors' pass. She smiled and handed it to me.

I walked into Chloe's room. She was sitting in the bed, looking out of the window, her face streaked with tears. The first few weeks I had come, she had always been out of bed, excluding the first day. Now, every time I came she was in bed. I walked over and lay down in the bed with her. We had grown especially close recently. She noticed I was there, but she didn't look away from the window.

"It's beautiful," she said, her voice scratchy.

"What's beautiful?" I asked, rolling over so that I was looking at the window with her.

"The rain."

"Yes. But it is cold and dark. The sun doesn't shine when it rains. The ground gets slippery and cars get in accidents."

She ignored me. "I wonder what it feels like."

"Oh, I'm sure you've felt the rain."

"Not since I was eight. I forgot. I forgot what a house looks like. I don't really remember my family's faces because they have been gone, dead for so long. Legolas? What does the rain feel like?"

"Well… it doesn't feel any different from a shower, to be honest."

"Yes it does. I remember it felt different than a shower. I remember that." She tore her eyes away from the window and rolled over so that she was facing me. "You know what else is beautiful?" she whispered.

"What?" I whispered back, like we were sharing a secret.

"You." She ran her fingers through my hair. I was shocked, but I didn't pull away. It felt amazing. The way her breath felt against my skin was beyond words. Her eyes, usually faint, now had a certain shine in them that had never been noticed there before. I placed one of my hands on her cheek and moved in, slowly.

The kiss was soft. Gentle. Clumsy.

"I'm sorry," she whispered; pulling away.

"For what?"

"I've never kissed anyone before. I've seen it on TV, but... I don't think I'm doing it right."

"You're doing fine."

She smiled and I leaned in again.

The next time I walked into the room, two days later, she was still looking out the window. It was still raining and the storm didn't show any signs of letting up soon. She was crying again. I lay down next to her and kissed her on the cheek.

"I wish I could feel it."

"Feel what?"

"The rain."

"You will. Some day."

"What day?" she asked, turning towards me, an unknown anger in her voice. "Today? Tomorrow? Sunday? Next month? This summer? Next year? When?" She was screaming at me now. "I'm never going to get to feel it! I'm never going to go outside! I'm going to die in this room. Whether it is old age or some disease that eventually gets me, I'm going to die in this room."

"No you're not. I promise you. You'll feel the rain."

"How can you promise me that?" she gasped out through her tears.

"I just know it Chloe. And when I make a promise, I keep a promise."

When I got home I stared at the wall for an hour. I was vaguely aware when Charlie came into the room and sat down on the bed next to me. "She seems nice," he whispered, patting my shoulder. I hadn't realised I was crying.

"She doesn't think she's gonna live," I whispered.

"Do you think she is?" he asked.

"I don't know."

The rain didn't stop for two weeks. Whenever I'd go into the hospital, I'd find Chloe crying and staring out the window. I wondered if it had been that way the entire time she was here, or something that had developed recently.

But today the rain had stopped. I was about to go into her room when the receptionist, who I had come to know as Mandy, stopped me. "Legolas. I have to tell you something. She knows, and I think you should too before you go in there."

"Does it have to do with her illnesses?" I asked, trying to look around her.

"Yes."

"Then I don't want to hear it. We decided that those things stayed away from our friendship." I walked around her and tried to continue on.

"Legolas, they're stopping treatment," she shouted after me. I stopped dead in my tracks. I didn't turn around. I didn't breathe. I didn't do anything. They were stopping her treatments?

"What?" I whispered. I was sure that Mandy couldn't hear it from where she was.

"They've been talking about doing it for quite some time, seeing as there has been no improvement in years."

Now I turned around and exploded. "What do you mean there's been no improvement? You can't stop trying to make her better! She's a human being! She isn't a pet. She isn't an experiment! She's a human! She's my friend! My best friend! You cannot take her away from me." I sank to my knees and cried into my hands. "You cannot take her away from me. I need her."

"Legolas. Please come with me. You can't do this here," she said. I numbly let her grab my arm and lead me to a back room where I sat in an uncomfortable chair. I continued to cry into my hands.

I didn't see her that day.

The next few days when I went to the hospital, it was never to be with her. I wanted to more than anything, but there was something I needed to do first. I'd gone to every one of her doctors, everyone I could find. Finally I was sitting down with the man in charge of Chloe's treatments.

"So you're saying you want to bring her outside?"

"Yes sir. We've been talking a lot for the past few months. She was always talking about the rain. She wants to feel it. She wanted to remember what it was like. It doesn't have to take long. It could be quick. But I know it's what she wants more than anything."

"Legolas, you know there are so many things wrong with letting her do that. She possibly won't be able to be attached to the necessary machines. She'd have to be in the open air, exposed to things her immune system can't begin to recognise."

I stood up and slammed my hands down on the table. "You're going to stop her treatments! It's a possibility she's going to die anyway! If she is going to die, then why not let her die with the one thing she wants most in this world? Why make her die in the same bed she's been lying in for the better part of seven years?" I was shouting. I knew it. I knew there was no way that Chloe was going to get to feel the rain. Unless I made it so.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave now," he said calmly.

"You're a heartless man."

The next time I was there I went to see her. She was sitting on her bed, colouring in a colouring book. It was so childish I smiled really big but it made my heart sink before it could break. I wondered how long she had if she was going to die. A week? A month? A year? "I thought you gave up on me," she whispered, not looking up but instead grabbing a yellow crayon.

"Why would I give up on you?" I asked, sliding into the bed with her. "You are my best friend."

"Just friends?"

"More than friends. You know that." I said, placing a kiss on her cheek. "What are you colouring?"

"I don't know. I found the colouring book in the children's wing and took it. There isn't much to do around here and you haven't come to see me for a week and a half."

"Yeah, I'm so sorry about that Chloe, I was really-"

"Who told you about my chances? I know that you know. Who was it?"

"Mandy, the receptionist."

"Oh."

I took the colouring book from her hands and placed it on the chair next to us. I took her face in my hands and pressed her lips to mine. Kissing her made me feel so happy, so alive. Just thinking that the chances she wasn't going to be alive much longer made me pull away, a pained sound coming from my throat.

"Legolas?" she asked, worried. I flung my arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder, my whole body heaving with the tears. She wrapped her arms around me comfortingly. There were so many things wrong with this picture. I was supposed to be soothing her, not the other way around.

"Please, you c-can't l-leave me!"

"Oh, Legolas," I could hear the crack in her voice. She was trying not to cry. "I told you that you should have switched partners."

"Don't even say that. These past two and a half months have been the most amazing in my life. I need you so much. Please. We'll find a miracle. I just... I can't loose you. You're the most important person in my life."

That did it. She was crying now. We just lay there, crying, holding on to each other like we'd die without it. Exhausted from the tears, we fell asleep in each others arms.

I woke up when it felt like only minutes had just gone by. Next to me, She still slept; the constant beeping of machines around us. I lay back down and tried to fall back asleep. All I could think of was the sound of the rain pounding the ceiling of the hospital.

It wasn't the first time I had stayed the night in the hospital with her, but it was the first time I had spent it without telling Big Rob. He was probably freaking out. I twisted away from Chloe and stepped out into the hall, pulling my cell phone out of my pocket.

No signal.

I walked out to the front reception area.

No signal.

I stepped outside. When I finally caught the signal I called Big Rob and told him I'd be back soon, but not too soon. I was going to wait until Chloe woke up, at least. He agreed and slightly reprimanded me for not telling him where I was. I could tell in his voice that he had suspected.

As I was walking back to Chloe's room, Mandy cornered me. "I heard your argument with the director."

"Oh, him." was all I said.

"I want to help."

"What?"

"If she wants to feel the rain, I'm going to help you sneak her outside."

"You don't even know her."

"No, but you do. And you care about her. You love her, don't deny it. And I love you... like a friend... and I want to help you. And I think that this whole thing is very poetic."

"Thanks."

"Come over during the next storm."

"I have a feeling I'll be here for awhile anyway."

"I had that feeling too."

The rain was pounding the sidewalk, causing it to splash up. Even though I hated the rain, mostly, I understood why Chloe wanted to feel it. Before I went into the hospital, I spread my arms out and looked up, letting the rain hit my face and run down my body. If you really felt it, and not just thought you did, it was a soothing, calming, perfect feeling. Much better than a shower.

I walked passed Mandy, watching as she nodded. I gave her the 'ten minutes' sign, holding up all ten fingers. She nodded again and I went into Chloe's room. She was worse than usual, half unconscious as she watched some show on Disney Channel.

"Hey Chloe."

"Legolas." It was like her throat was an old attic, filled with cobwebs and dirt. I half expected to see dust fly out of her mouth.

"I have a surprise for you!" I said, cheerfully, walking over to help her sit up.

"Legolas, I can't right now. I'm not doing well. I have to rest."

"No, we have to do this now. I'll probably get arrested for what I'm going to try right now, so you better help me."

"What is it Legolas?" she whispered.

"You're going to feel the rain."

"I can't stand, Legolas. I can't even sit. This may be it for me. It's okay. I don't need to feel the rain."

"Yes you do. I made you a promise and I'm not going to let you stay like this Chloe. If not for yourself, for me?"

"Okay Legolas, for you."

I smiled and gently pulled the IV from her arm. I un-hooked, un-latched, and ripped off so many cords and wires it surprised me. Those must have been new. I basically picked her up and sat her down in the wheelchair that Mandy had brought in with her. Smiling, Mandy ran ahead of us as I pushed Chloe through the hallways as fast as I could without loosing control.

We were outside. Chloe gasped. "Legolas. You did it," she inhaled deeply, as if she thought she'd never smell fresh air again. I was about to walk around and help her stand, but she did it on her own. Her first steps were clumsy, but she gained her balance.

With surprising speed she ran out onto the hospitals front lawn. She skipped and twirled and threw her head back, letting the rain soak her face and hair. I ran to her and we splashed and held each other. "Legolas. You really did it."

"I promised, remember?"

about a week later, I was lying in bed the next night when Charlie picked up the phone. I listened to every word he was saying. The tone in his voice said it all. She was dead. My heart felt like it was going to leave my chest and be buried underground. I realised that a huge part of me had lived along with her, but it was not enough to help her survive.

I do not know how, but it is because of her that my world has fallen in place, but now is more broken than ever. Because of her.

Because of her, Chloe, my sweet angel, lonely goddess of her kind, it is because of her that I felt all the world inside of me, and now it is all gone.


End file.
